And speaking of North Korea, weren't they engaging in a whole lot of saber rattling a couple years ago, looking altogether like they wanted to provoke an attack? Didn't we initiate talks with them, with multi national cooperation? And haven't they since calmed the fvck down without the need to kill anybody?

I've discussed this before.

International relationships change constantly. We gained our independence from the British and they are now our closest ally. We couldn't have won WWII without the Russians, but literally immediately after the end of the war they became out biggest adversary. Japan is one of our closest allies now afte being a part of the Axis powers. Biggest difference is that Clinton armed a current adversary with nukes.

So.....yes, Reagan did indeed help build Saddam up, but at the time that was necessary (primarily because of Carter's ineptitude regarding Iran). He also helped build up bin Laden in Afghanistan, but it was well necessary because of Soviet expansionism. Mistakes? Yes, of course, the most obvious being leaving a power vacuum in Afghanistan after the Soviets left (hmmm.....yet some want to do that in Iraq right now....hmm.....).

I have absolutely no problem looking at the world climate at a given point in time and making judgements about what was necessary to do at the time. Some things turn out horribly. Some things turn out wonderfully. Hind sight is, well, you know.

Who was it that was responsible for that? Well, that was China, as much as I hate to say that. They intervened because they did not want a nuclear exchange right next door. And that's what it would have become because of....you guessed it....naive negotiations by an administratin that wanted to appear to have success and therefore gave them a direct path to nuclear weapons. Should North Korea have used them, most likely on the South or Japan, there would have been a nuclear response.

I have no doubt that an equally naive Obama, wanting to appear to have a foreign policy success, would do something equally stupid sitting down with them.

Last thing the world needs is to allow Iran to get nukes, because Ahmahdinejad isn't nearly as reasonable as Kim Jong Il.

And while were at the whole Obama foreign policy, he is getting slimier by the day. McCain said that Obama wanted to have direct talks with Castro. In a debate last June, Obama answered a question and indeed said he would talk with them without condition. Well, in response to what McCain said, Obama became his usual self righteous...er...self and accused McCain of dirty politics because "I never said I wanted to normalize relations with Cuba". McCain didn't say that. He said the truth, and Obama is dodging it by changing what McCain said.

My hope is that whoever is President, doesn't take such a black and white stance on "negotiating" like people have argued here and treat each circumstance with consideration of the individual facts and act upon that instead.

Screw that... if they piss us off; nuke 'em!

Racking up the visual mojo- thanks for the laugh!:snap:


Oh, and Scaeagles- I'll take naive (is that your new word for the week?) over willfully ignorant any day.

I could use moronic, inexperienced, stupid, idiotic, dumb, foolish.....any number of words....but you know me. I want to make it sound as nice as possible. :)

Yesterday, before school, I had the pleasure of overhearing a kid in my daughter's class telling some of his friends that he had a gun in his backpack. I followed him around to confirm that I had heard what I had heard, and overheard a steady stream of conversation about guns, killing power, blow someone's head off, etc. I told the teacher, and she asked him to come to the door where she asked him about it. He basically copped to it but said there weren't any bullets in it. I later found out from the principal that it was a pellet gun. I don't know if it was loaded.

The boy is from a nice law abiding family as are the two kids he was bragging to. One of the dads is in law enforcement in some respect. The kid and the two kids he picked to brag to and converse with are nice kids, but they are the three that probably have the most trouble in class.

So, while I know this doesn't happen every day, I still question the premise of "law abiding citizens" going around armed saying "Morning, neighbor," and basically forgetting that they are armed until the unthinkable actually happens. Maybe--maybe--I could be convinced to feel differently in a real hunting community where men supposedly view guns no differently than they view any other tool that has its useful purpose. However, I think in the majority of places, guns, like jacked-up pickup trucks, are major cultural testosterone symbols of aggression, compensation, etc. I cannot see that multiplying their presence on the streets could ever be a good thing.

This is where we have a complete disconnect. I see guns as useful tools in situations that you do not.

That's not our disconnect. Of course, a gun is a useful tool in the appropriate situation. So is a defibrillator. So is a hammer to bust a back window to let a kid or a dog out of a hot car. No one's advocating we all walk around for the greater good with defibrillators or hammers.

Our disconnect is our respective articles of faith. You assume that the mass of people who advocate for concealed carry do so from entirely pure motives. I assume that they do so because they think that carrying a gun is an ego boost and that they, deep down, or maybe not so deep down, hope they get a chance to kill somebody. The truth is probably somewhere in between, but I still think it's closer to my view than yours.